It's Official!

Today, I signed the papers and I am officially a third grade classroom teacher!

I went down to the school this week to check out my classroom and to talk with my new boss...AKA The Principal. We had some great conversations, and she is very open to creative thinking and planning when it comes to the curriculum. Within the next few weeks, I'll have to look closely at the state standards and get a feel for what I'm about to do!

Another reason I wanted to see the classroom is to take inventory of what I would need. It's a good size room, and I'll only have 16 students (HOORAY!), but the one thing that stood out among everything else that is missing was...A CLASSROOM LIBRARY!

I send this out as a plea to solicit book donations. I was given a small budget to purchase books, and I will do my best to stretch it as far as I can, so I'm not asking for money. What I am asking for is if you have kids' books that were once well loved, but now sit in a box (I know I do!), I would be happy to put them to good use - give them a second life!

I aspire my future classroom library to look like this one!

I'm looking for books that are 2 grade levels below 3rd grade, and 2 grade levels above 3rd grade. The best and quickest way to find out it to go to Scholastic.com and type the title of the book in the search box. The book will come up with Interest Level, Grade Level Equivalent, and more. It's the Grade Level Equivalent you'll want to know, and I'll take anything that is grade 1-5. If you're not sure, just ask!

Thank you so much for your help in building my classroom library! It is so important for these kids to read, especially independently.

Because lists are a good thing:
1. DO NOT send money
2. Donate books that level from grades 1 through 5
3. Fiction and Non-Fiction books alike (I SPY and picture books welcome!)
4. If I end up with duplicates or more than I need (?? fingers crossed!), I will donate them to a local women's shelter or orphanage
5. Email me if you think you have books! :)

Thank you for your support, and here's to a better literate future for children!

The End leading to New Beginnings

My days as intern are over. It was bitter sweet. I will dearly miss those I worked with, who I now call friends. I have learned so much from them and I know I will continue to keep them on speed dial as I begin my next journey as a....

After an interview mix up, a few prayers, and a fabulous second interview, I am thrilled to announce that I am starting a my brand new career as a full time third grade teacher in an inclusion classroom.

I originally thought this blog would serve only as a reflective tool during my time as an intern, but in looking back over it today, I realized how useful this forum is as REFLECTION. So I plan on continuing my posts as I begin teaching. In staying true to form, I will create code names for everyone involved and never mention specific places or people.

On a more fun note...I can't wait to get started!!! I won't be posting much over the next few weeks, but as I learn more about my new position, the school, and my roll, I'll have plenty to add. I have also decided to open this blog up to the public to seek advice from those who have gone before me. If you are a teacher, a friend, a parent, or someone who likes to reflect, please feel free to comment, or just come along for the ride. It's going to be a bumpy one! It's also going to be glorious, wonderful, stressful, trying, beautiful and more.

Lions, Tigers, and Standardized Tests, Oh My!

Have you even been in a situation where you just mind-scream to someone, willing them to hear you? This is what proctoring standardized tests are like for me. If I were just able to say one thing, give a simple reminder or hint, encourage the student to check again, or go with their gut, I'm sure they could show more than the simple bubbled in answer shows.

The earliest recorded uses of standardized tests are from China, and throughout history, they have been used for many different purposes, as this brief TIME article can tell you. While this article speaks to the the SATs and ACTs, but at the elementary level, state tests can be the stressful equvilent to 7 year-olds. This teacher needs to do more research, as I'm sure there are benefits to standardized tests, right? I mean, I just finished the fifth of five state tests that allow me to get my teaching license, so there must be something to them...or I wouldn't still be taking them in my late twenties!

It's Been a While!

I know it's been a while, but this semester has been quite busy. As I am finished up my maters program, I had two very intensive courses this spring along with my special education concentrated practicum. To catch up on the entire semester would be a very long post indeed. Therefore I am not going to do that here. Instead, I will write weekly (or maybe even more!). Who knows...maybe I'll even continue this blog throughout my teaching career! (Wow...that's really ambitious of me!)

So to do a quick recap of the past four and a half months, not much has changed in my roll as intern, as I have still been switching back and forth between regular education and special education. As two of the teachers I work with have been getting bigger and bigger by the day (relax...they're pregnant...remember?) I have been taking over classes left and right...and loving it!

I have learned so much from my mentor teachers (and they have all in one way become my mentors), but the two I work directly with are amazing. This is a group of women I hope to never loose contact with.

The children have been...wonderful, difficult, amazing, stubborn, fantastic, creative, headstrong, inventive, lazy, clever, hardworking, teachers, humorous, and so much more.

Week End

Monday, December 13, 2010

The end of last week went really well! The first math lessons of each day were a little off, but I feel that's because I needed to familiarize myself with the language to teach the content. The second and third lessons always went much better. For everything else, transitions went a lot smoother, perhaps a combination of me...but more because the children calmed down. I tried the wait time, and to not show I was getting exasperated, and I'm sure that helped, too.

Today I'll teach math but tomorrow, for my observation at the end of my "leadership week" I will be teaching a hands on science lesson, on weather instruments! :)

It's a Miss E takeover!!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Take over week/leadership week is in full swing! Although I was supposed to start on Tuesday, REM was out sick on Monday, so I had to step in...good thing I had already planned on teaching Math that day! So Monday was Greatest Common Factor (GCF). The lesson went well. I could tell the first class was getting bored because they got GCF right away! There was a lot of class work to be done, so I encouraged them to push through. We had quite a bit of issues with talking, and it wasn't just the first class. The entire grade was off, and it even carried over into lunch. I received a few apologies from students, which while I didn't expect them at all, I appreciated because I really thought there was something I was missing to be able to maintain order. I did have to take recess away from the students because I had to remind them 4 times (3 times too many) that they were to be working quietly. SPEM recommended they get a chance to earn back recess, because she felt they need recess. I'm trying to think of ways to get them to stop talking so much and stay on task...and this is becoming a behavior issue for the entire grade...

Tuesday went much better. I talked to SPEM about some strategies and she said to focus on the positive. I'm struggling with saying "I notice so and so is working well" when that child is the ONLY one doing so...and everyone else is talking and laughing and shouting out and not on task. So I'm working on some strategies for myself. Like the last class of the day, they could not stop talking, so I got their attention, and asked if we could try something different. I then had them complete their worksheet with a partner, and they were able to get it done. Sometimes it's proving to be the little things...

Wednesday went well...the kids loved the rubric I introduced and came up with some great words and phrases to describe a "good math problem solver." We then went over how to use the rubric to do an open response. The first two classes I was on my own, being SPEM was out today at a class, so REM rotated. During the third math class of the day, our homeroom (the integrated classroom), REM stepped in after I walked them through how to do the problem, and had kids do it on their own. She explained to me that there is such a wide range of learners in the class that half were done with the problem while I was still going through it. So she wanted to give students time to do the rest on their own while teachers walked around helping those who needed it. We had a second open response ready as a challenge, and many student completed them.

It is definitely a learning process for me!

Leadership Week Begins

Monday, December 6, 2010

My leadership week (traditionally known as a take-over week) begins on Tuesday and will go until the following Tuesday. However, REM was out sick today (Monday), therefor it really began today! No worries, as I had already planned on taking over math today. Last week, I stayed after school until 6pm on Thursday night and planned out Monday-Wednesday for math. Over the weekend, I made rubric posters so the kids could start grading their open responses themselves and determine what they need to work on to score a 4 on state testing open responses. Being I'm interning with the math teacher, all I'm taking over is math, as well as the other homeroom responsibilities, such as reading, writing, and transitions.

The plan is as follows for math: Monday, Greatest Common Factor (GCF), Tuesday - Multiples and Least Common Multiple (LCM), Wednesday - Open Response questions, Thursday - Vocabulary review and Divisibility Game, Friday - Prime Factorization and Factor Trees, Monday - Negative Numbers

I'm really looking forward to this week and feel prepared right now for all except Friday and Monday (and being it's only the first Monday, I'd say I'm in pretty good shape!)

Here we go!!